Ancient and Modern Concepts About the Asteraceae Taxonomy

Abstract

This chapter provides an update on the systematics of Asteraceae (formerly known as Compositae), which is the largest vascular plant family. This update includes the changes of concepts that have occurred from the old times of the elementary recognition of the Asteraceae as a natural group of angiosperms in the last decades of the eighteenth century up to the advanced plant systematics trends of the twenty-first century. This contribution is to provide non-scholars in neither botany nor plant systematics some knowledge about this complex mega-family, its infra-familial relationships and the nomenclatural crossroads.

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank CONICET and Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the financial support given to his research group and also to the numerous colleagues and fellows for their useful suggestions about botanical issues about Asteraceae.

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